Interlude
by atree
Summary: Collection of one-shots about Korra and Asami's vacation in the Spirit World.
1. Beginnings

A/N: This will be a series of (very short) one-shots about Korra and Asami's vacation in the Spirit World. I _had _to write something after that ending. These stories are aimless with no destination in mind, though if you squint there's a semblance of plot. Non-lore compliant.

Beginnings

Korra, as it turns out, doesn't know the Spirit World as well as Asami thinks she does. She says this abashedly to Asami _after _they arrive, two weeks' worth of supplies already in their backpacks, having told everyone (amid some rather odd glances) that they will be gone for a while. When they step out of the portal, they find themselves in a meadow stretching from horizon to horizon, filled with violet flowers whose petals are flecked with green, against a backdrop of distant icebergs. After they walk around a bit, Korra finally admits she has no idea where they are. They must be in the Spirit World's parallel of Republic City, but she has no idea where that is.

"And here I thought you were the bridge between the worlds," Asami says, raising an eyebrow.

"We'll be fine," Korra says. "Probably. We'll find a landmark or something soon."

"What are you waiting for, then?" Asami says. Laughing, she races ahead, dragging Korra behind her. The air here is rich, suffused with the scent of dried tangerines and everywhere energy crackles beneath the surface, dancing on their skin, heating up their blood, lighting up the space between them when they finally collapse, breathless and laughing, on top of each other.

When they kiss the electricity courses through them and lingers long after their lips part.

What have they been waiting for, indeed.


	2. Green

Green

"What's your name, little guy?" Korra asks.

The frog spirit blinks once through its translucent eyelids, croaks, and hops away.

Korra sighs, splaying out on the grass. Next to her Asami is playing with a dragonfly bunny spirit. Noon – or what Korra thinks must be noon – finds them in a forest of giant mushrooms. Their stalks spiral into the air, supporting a canopy of caps that almost cover the entire sky; whatever sunlight reaches them creates a perpetual twilight.

"The spirits aren't as helpful as I remember," Korra says. "I think it's because we're just playing around. Every time I've come here the world was always on the brink of collapse. I _needed _their help."

"This little guy is plenty helpful, aren't you?" Asami rubs the spirit under the chin. It chitters, perking up its ears. "Who's an adorable little spirit? Yes you are!"

"Getting around is tricky," Korra continues. "Time and distance don't work the same way as they do in our world. I was thinking we could – "

"Stop that!" Asami giggles. The dragonfly bunny spirit has climbed onto her shoulder, rubbing against her cheek. Its wings flitter faster than the eye can follow, creating a high-pitched music that rises and lowers, surges and slows, in cadence with some hidden heartbeat. The spirit's ears brush against Asami's nose; she is trying very hard not to sneeze.

Perhaps this is fine, too, Korra thinks. She extends her hand. The bunny spirit looks at her, _hisses _ – can rabbits even hiss? – and flies onto Asami's head, burrowing underneath her hair.

"I guess he doesn't like you," Asami says, reaching up and petting it.

"Yeah, well, I don't like him either." Korra turns away, arms crossed. Who does that spirit think it is? Does it have any idea that she is the Avatar? And Asami seems to think that thing is more important than her –

Asami embraces her from behind. Her breasts press against Korra's back, head falling into the space between her neck and shoulder as naturally as a flower petal falling onto a lake's surface. Hair that cannot possibly be so silky brushes Korra's jaw. Gentle touches travel along her bare arms, so light she cannot tell if Asami is actually touching her. She shivers. Some part of her is being swallowed, she is diving into the mouth of the beast, soon she will be melted entirely. Asami's scent is moon flower and panda lily with an undercurrent – bizarrely enticing – of engine oil.

"Jealous?" Asami whispers.

"Of what?" Korra scowls. But Asami merely laughs and tilts Korra's head back. The blood rushing to her face is entirely due to her position, Korra tells herself. Asami bends down towards her. For a long time they kiss. The Spirit World holds its breath; there are no stray currents here to interrupt the silence, no snapping twigs to startle them. Korra cannot remember when they break but they must have done so – she is lying in Asami's lap, staring upside-down into those green eyes as Asami strokes her cheek. Her heart has engorged to fill her entire chest; she listens to its beat, loud as war drums, and she fears it will burst because the human heart is not made to hold so much happiness.


	3. Stories

Stories

They wander from meadow to sea. They wander in rain and in snow and in a glittery falling powder that reflects sunlight like motes of glass. Korra realizes how little of the Spirit World she has actually traversed – like swimming in a pool, while the ocean is out there to explore. They can wander ten thousand lifetimes and never see it all even as the land behind them changes after their passing. They have packed enough food for two weeks – hard, dry rations, because anything else will not keep.

"I think I'll rather go hungry than eat another meal of this stuff," Korra says. She stares at the grey square of "bread" in her hand.

"The sooner you start, the sooner it'll be over," Asami says sagely, taking a bite. She makes a face. "Are you sure there's nothing we can eat over here?"

"Probably, but I'm not sure if it'll be safe. And I don't want to mistake a spirit's tail for fruit or something."

Asami laughs, and Korra reluctantly takes a bite.

When they finish eating, they lie on their blankets and stare at the sky. Nights are warmer here. There are no stars but the Spirit World's sky has no need for such ornament. Swathes of reds and greens and purples swirl into one another as if an artist spilled his palette while painting the world, and each color wars for attention against the dusk. Korra is reminded of the kaleidoscope her mother gave her when she was a child, the pattern shifting with every turn of the cylinder. But who is turning the sky? The only constant is the clear-water moon, proud and perfect, where, if they squint, they can just make out two fish swimming below its surface.

"Tui and La," Korra says, then corrects herself. "_Yue _and La. Or something like that. I don't remember the specifics."

"The Moon and Ocean spirits," Asami murmurs. Her eyes are closed, her voice dwindling. "My father used to tell me their stories…"

Korra lifts a strand of hair out of Asami's eyes. She looks better without makeup, Korra thinks, her face marred only by a slight grimace on her lips. Asami does not normally let it show; it only appears on the precipice between waking and dreaming, before she falls asleep and before she wakes. Korra wracks her brain for the details of Aang's accomplishments, back in that compound where her tutors droned for hours while she hid behind a stack of books, trying not to let them see her sleep. She doesn't remember all (or even most) of it, and what she does remember is most likely wrong, but she goes for it anyway.

"The scout saw the Fire Nation warships coming across the sea," Korra begins. "Aang and his future wife were learning how to waterbend from Master Pakku, the greatest waterbender of their time…"


	4. Change

Change

The grove is not quite as Korra remembers it. The stream is dark blue instead of red, winding through grass that has grown thick with weeds. A few new saplings have sprouted around the water's edge. The blood dragon trees, too, have turned from yellow to green. Their branches are fuller, supporting clouds of leaves puffing out like balloons. Time, it seems, changes even the Spirit World.

She doesn't know why she has decided to come here, when there exist thousands of other lands. But out of all the lands of the Spirit World she remembers this one most clearly – it pulls her as irrevocably as the moon pulls the tide, there and back again, there and back again. Perhaps she will never break free.

"It's beautiful," Asami says. She dips her fingers into the water. They come away stained blue.

"I thought you'd like it," Korra says.

She sits next to Asami on the bank, listening to the soft rush of the stream. Is he out there somewhere? If they wander long enough, will they meet him? The Spirit World is so vast the chances of them meeting must be nonexistent, but the Spirit World has a strange way with tendencies. Distance conforms to the shape of the heart. The furthest destination is no further than your deepest fear. What seems close enough to touch might be as out-of-reach as unrequited love. Here it is the traveler that shapes the land, not the other way around. And he has been traveling for longer than she has been alive.

"What's it called?" Asami asks.

"Xai Bau's grove. It's where I met – " Korra pauses, shaking her head. She smiles and looks up at the sky. " – someone who helped me, in the end."

If they do meet again, it'll be her chance to tell him thanks.


	5. Fire

Fire

Asami is the first to see the waterfall. It is only about twice their height, nothing as monstrous as the ones in the water tribes, which can be so large the mist hides their base from view. The water here cascades smoothly in the shape of a curtain, its surface a rippling mirror. They walk down towards it from the sloping bank. Asami insists; Korra wonders why a waterfall is so fascinating.

"I haven't showered since we came here," Asami says.

Korra turns red as a lychee nut.

"Well, I'll just be…over there," Korra says, turning away. "Take your time – "

Asami laughs, taking her by the hand. Before Korra can protest, she is dragged beneath the falls, rivers crashing down on her head. White spray stings her skin. She flails around, slips on the rocks, drags Asami down with her. Asami's laughter is replaced with drowned splutters. All around them is the roar of water. Blinded, Korra gropes for something to pull herself up. Her hand presses down on something soft. Asami yelps.

Korra thrusts her arm out. The waterfall parts around them, encasing them in a glittering cage.

Asami lies underneath her. Her hair spreads out in wet tendrils, framing a face flushed and panting and very much surprised. Water still clings to her eyelashes; when she blinks the droplets tremble, and those eyes are bright enough to outshine the sun reflected a thousand times in the water. The world is too hot. Korra drinks in the details: the red of Asami's lips, the fabric clinging to Asami's breasts, the space between Asami's thighs. Korra's fingers fumble with the buttons of Asami's shirt. The collar parts to reveal a patch of white skin, so pale and perfect she can't help but press her lips against it, tastes something far sweeter than rice wine.

Asami's body shudders. One hand tangles in Korra's hair while the other braces the back of Korra's neck, driving her closer. Korra trails kisses along her jaw. Fire ignites the blood in her veins and the inferno threatens to consume her like her first attempts at firebending. She remembers the white-hot flame dancing in the palm of her hand. To contain what cannot be contained is a battle of will – will the fire yield, or will your flesh burn? Eventually, she had learned to control it.

This time she lets it consume her.


	6. Interlude

Interlude

The storm surprises them, coming over the lake. Thunderclouds charge east on a warpath. They are eating lunch by the lakeside when the first droplets fall. The lake swarms with a million little ripples before they, too, are overrun, and Korra barely manages to bend a section of earth over their heads before the rain soaks their supplies. Dried bread may not taste very good, but soggy bread is worse.

Korra conjures a ball of fire to warm them. She sits in Asami's lap, head nuzzling the taller girl's neck, hands cupped around the ball of fire like she is holding a peach. Its warmth is nothing compared to Asami's. The sky flashes violet lightning and thunder immediately echoes it. Wind sweeps across the grass, sending reeds bowing into the water. Along the lakeshore waves crest and crash. Outside is cold and dark. They cannot hide forever – eventually they will go back out into the world and again shoulder their responsibilities. But here and now it is warm. The rain beats softly against the earth. How long will it last? Eyes closed, Asami's arms encircling her waist, Korra finds she doesn't quite care.


	7. Night

Night

When Korra wakes she is greeted by green clouds blossoming over the mountains. Beside her Asami is still sleeping. During the night Korra had woken to nightmares – not hers but Asami's. Asami's arms had clutched tight around Korra's shoulders, nails digging in hard enough to draw blood, and Korra had lain there in the darkness and endured. Amid hushed cries and whispers of "Father, father!" Korra had kissed her on the forehead. She licks her lips; her tongue remembers the tang of sweat and flesh hot as fever.

But Asami in the morning betrays none of her nightmares. She yawns, stretching out full along the blanket. When she sees Korra already awake, watching her, Asami curls up against her and breathes into her skin, "Good morning."

Asami does not seem to remember her dreams. Korra is not sure if that is good or bad. Is it worth it to drag sadness into the sunlight? Will it shrivel up like a cabbage slug? Or is it better to let it lie and let time grind it away, like time does all other things? Perhaps touching the wound will only cause more pain. She wants to help but her tongue wrestles with the words. She wishes Katara is here.

"Are you okay?" Asami asks. "What happened to your shoulder?"

"I must've rolled over a rock or something when I slept." Korra plays with Asami's hair, curling a stray lock around her finger. "Is there anything you want to talk about?"

"Of course!" Korra freezes. "I heard there was a library in the Spirit World, the biggest library ever built. Can we go?"

Korra's hand falls to Asami's cheek. Looking at that eager face, she thinks that perhaps there are emotions better left untouched, and words better left unsaid. In time, it may eventually rise to the surface – but why force it? Let come what may. Happiness is ephemeral, while sadness is the natural state of things.


	8. Climb

Climb

They reach the summit by late afternoon. They have been hiking since morning, after Asami sees the silhouette of the mountain against the sky. "Wouldn't the view from there look gorgeous?" she says. Korra agrees and offers to take her there. Asami declines – hard work is part of the reward, she argues. Besides, she hasn't gone hiking since she was a child. They do it the old-fashioned way.

Which Korra is having second thoughts about now. They trudge forward through bare rock, the footing so uneven Korra can feel every grain and pebble through her shoe. Her shirt is soaked with sweat – when they make camp they will need to wash their clothes. And themselves. The landscape is brown and grey, rock upon rock upon rock, broken up only by the occasional fern jutting out bravely between the cracks. The wind fights their every step. Its teeth graze them on their skin and its feet kick dust in their eyes, and every time they open their mouths its hands steal their words.

This is hardly a vacation, Korra thinks glumly, taking another step forward – and the world suddenly lies below them.

The path ends in a sheer drop. They stand at the cliff's edge and look down upon what must be all of creation. At the valley's heart lies a forest of gold-and-purple trees, a forest Korra remembers walking through, thinking it stretches forever – now the forest can be covered with her thumb. When the wind sweeps through the valley the trees bow in greeting. The river they have followed for the last two days is a thin blue line snaking through the forest, its mouth feeding into an enormous bay whose green waters reflect an orange sky, and, beyond the bay, they can make out the shadows of some fog-shrouded land.

When faced with such a sight, Korra thinks, there is only one thing to do.

Besides, she is _not _going back down the same way.

"Asami, do you trust me?"

Asami raises an eyebrow. "Of course. What do you have in mind?" She takes a step back. "Really? Are you sure? Even Tenzin needs a wingsuit or glider – "

Korra's eyes glow blue, and when she speaks another voice echoes.

"Tenzin's got _nothing _on me."

She grabs Asami's hand and plunges over the edge.


	9. Waltz

Waltz

When night falls, they lay down their blankets in a meadow lit by flowers. It has something to do with the construction of the petals – Korra dimly remembers this from one of Tenzin's lectures – that allows them to reflect moonlight back in every color of the spectrum, no two petals quite the same, reds and blues and greens scattered among the grass like little lightbulbs. In the darkness Korra and Asami watch the colors dance across each other's face. A ribbon of blue wraps around Asami's eyes, two spots of pink fall over her cheeks, a dark crimson touches her lips. She is so beautiful that Korra hardly believes she is real, so she kisses her, just to be sure.

Asami tastes of wine, not the dinner party wine Korra has been served too many times since coming to Republic City but the wine she had stolen a taste of once, when she was a small child, from her father's stocks. The sweetness of it had surprised her, heightened by the piquancy of something forbidden, something secret, and she had been drunk on the first sip. She hungers for it now, pressing Asami into the grass, hands pushing up Asami's shirt as far as it will go, and when she presses her palm against Asami's bare stomach she finds the flesh as hot as her own.

The music starts.

It is not quite music in the traditional sense. Certainly it is nothing like music in the real world. The sound cannot have been made by human instruments, or _any _instruments, for that matter. Instead of the pluckings of the liuqin there are the trills of birds; instead of drums there are footsteps pounding against the dirt; instead of flutes there are howls rising and falling in one unbroken melody. It can hardly be called music at all – the tone and rhythm are all wrong, falling in and out of step like children rushing forward. The spirits must be responsible. But why? Are they celebrating? Are they mourning?

It doesn't matter. The mood is _entirely _ruined.

With a sigh, Korra sits up on the grass. Asami smoothes out her dress and picks out the colored petals stuck to her hair. They look at each other.

"Those spirits," Korra says.

"Those spirits," Asami agrees.

They burst into laughter. The music winds around them and they feel the melody vibrating in their bones. Lit under a full moon, the meadow runs flat for miles in every direction, but they cannot see the orchestra – proximity and intensity are not linked in this realm, Korra knows. The only thing that matters is emotion. Some great event might have stirred spirits thousands of miles away and the outpourings of their soul manifested in this primal song, carried upon the wind, by the sea, between the stones of the earth to their ears, and thousands of miles again it will travel to the ends of the world so that all spirits (and some humans) might know.

Asami plucks a flower: six blue and red petals in alternating order, surrounding a star-shaped center. She threads the stem through the fabric of her shirt, fastening it like a boutonnière. Standing up, she extends a hand to Korra.

"Care for a dance?"

Korra turns red. "I can't dance."

Grinning, Asami yanks her upright. "Good time to learn."

Korra has watched Asami from afar, dancing on the ballroom with men who looked like oafs in comparison (and some part of her had burned with jealousy) – now she knows it's impossible to look like anything else when paired with someone so graceful. Asami twirls Korra around on an outstretched arm and reels her back just as easily, bringing their faces so close their noses shyly touch. The music cannot have corresponded with any known dance but Asami's steps do not falter. They drift among the flowers beneath a starless sky. Hundreds of petals are crushed underfoot; their pigments bleeding out on the grass marks a trail that twists and turns, loops back on itself, zigzags in some pattern that is not quite random, perhaps preordained. Korra tries to remember something from the dance lessons Tenzin had forced on her (and which she had subsequently ditched). _One-two-three one-two-three one-to-hell-with-it. _Korra is dizzy from all the spinning, and she is barely aware of anything besides a series of flowing movements linking into the next like beads on a string. Asami's movements remind her of water, ever-changing, ever-moving. Even when an erratic tempo change interrupts the current she flows around it, and the setback never shows. How can you dance so beautifully, Korra thinks, with so much sadness inside you?

_While I – I ran away for three years from half a cup of poison._

Asami dips her to the ground, supporting her back in a perfect arch.

"Don't look so anxious," she whispers. "You're doing fine."

Asami kisses her, and there is nothing except music and the taste of wine.


	10. Only

Only

The sunlight on your hair as you sleep, the sunlight on your lips, the sunlight in your eyes when you wake with my fingers against your cheek brushing away the tears from your dreams, and when you see me you smile, the same smile you give me every morning yet different, I swear, because nothing so perfect can be replicated, we kiss but you laugh and push me away, saying that you need to wash up, you are hungry, all logical reasons but I've always thought logic overrated, especially in this world, still I let you wade into the stream, water darkening your clothes, water pouring down your face and slicking back your hair as you raise your head to the sun and close your eyes, that same pose you try on every morning, except this time when you turn you catch me staring and you smirk, what are you looking at? walking back to shore with your clothes clinging to your skin, that swaying walk, that casual toss of the head, when you sit down next to me I can smell the wetness, fresh and clean, mixed with the scent of your perfume, yes, perfume I said, your perfume, the perfume you didn't put on, the perfume you didn't even bring because you thought it extravagant for a trip such as ours, still you manufacture it somewhere within your body and breathe it out through the pores of your skin, had you some way to bottle it up and sell it you'll be rich, even richer, I mean, and you laugh, thinking it was a joke, and it was, but all jokes are rooted in truth so they say, the crease of your lips when you laugh, the dimples on your cheeks when you laugh, the widening of your eyes when you laugh, did you know I tried to copy your laughter once? tried to capture some part of you within myself, part of your beauty, watching my reflection laugh in the rippling water and realizing it was all futile, like trying to capture sunlight in my hands, before I heard your steps and jumped away from the water's edge, embarrassed, like a child, like that time my mother caught me trying on her lipstick with red smeared all over my face, what were you laughing at? oh nothing much you know uh just stuff, and you raised an eyebrow and my face grew hot and how long ago was that? just two days ago you say? that can't be true it was at least a week, I furrow my eyebrows, but remembering is difficult here, time is fluid here, yesterday we hiked through an evergreen valley, the day before that we lunched at the lakeside, no that was the day before the day before yesterday you say, the day before yesterday we slept in the hollow of a tree, nestled against one another as rain drizzled outside, speaking about our childhood days even though we were too young for nostalgia, and I remember now, yes, of course, you're right (as always, you add smugly), but now that I remember I can't get it out of my head, the smell of moss and pine, the bark scratching my skin, the hum of the rain as you talked about your childhood but sadly, sadly, your warmth in my arms, and I kissed your neck like drawing out poison, drawing out your sadness, your loss, your burden, if I could I would take all your misfortunes upon myself until you are as pure as the first snow of Arctic summer, until I am bent and crushed, please, let me bear it all, if only I could, if only.


	11. Remembrance I

A/N: Is this…a plot? I know, I'm as surprised as you are. First of a three-parter.

Remembrance I

It comes to Korra in a dream.

She stands on the beach with water lapping at her feet. The ocean stretches forward and to either side as far as she can see. She knows it is a dream because the colors of the water and of the sky and of the sunlight on the sand are too vibrant to be real, and there is a sharp quality to the scene, as if an artist has painted it by slashing across the canvas. The scent, too, is strange, not the smell of salt but of camellia sinensis, the funeral flower.

Tentatively, she takes a step forward. The water certainly _feels _real enough. She scoops it up with her fingers, watching the droplets catch the light as they fall. This is a dream, but so realistic it cannot have come by naturally. Someone has led her here. But who? And why? The Spirit World is shaped by the emotions of its inhabitants; the more intense the emotion, the more intense the shaping. In the past she has been guided by desperation and desire, but desperation is absent now and desire is sated. What secret part of her heart has been tugging her forward? What secret sadness has escaped her notice?

"Korra? Korra!"

She wakes to Asami shaking her shoulder. The roar of water subsides, the sunlight dims. Korra blinks.

"About time you woke up," Asami says. "I've been calling your name for the last five minutes."

Korra sits up and rubs her eyes. Asami hands her a basin of water. Korra washes her face – warm water, unlike the water from the ocean. The world is trying to tell her something. What is she missing? She feels as if she is listening to someone speak behind a screen, their words just barely indistinct but they are speaking about something vitally important, the most important thing in the world, and if she can just make out the words then all the world's mysteries will be laid bare.

"So, where are we going today?" Asami says.

Korra sees the redness in Asami's eyes, and understands.

"You decide today," she says. "I'll follow you."

Asami raises an eyebrow. "I don't know anything about the Spirit World."

"It doesn't matter. Go anywhere."

The world will lead.


End file.
